Modern day, high power radars require receiver protection (RP) that can handle hundreds of watts overage and still provide recovery times in the fractional microsecond range. These requirements are usually met by the RF by incorporating a pre-TR stage in the overall design. This stage is typically a sealed quartz vial, containing a halogen gas, such as chlorine installed in an aluminum mount that incorporates an appropriate iris. One serious limitation for high power systems is that these types of pre-TR designs are power limited due to the quartz temperature in the area of the plasma discharge. The poor thermal conductivity of quartz prevents thermal equilibrium from being achieved. The quartz temperature in the discharge area is considerably higher than that measured on the end of the vial. These extreme temperatures eventually result in the vial losing its vacuum integrity, and therefore, result in a catastrophic failure of the receiver protector. The receiver protector failure then results in a serious damage to the sensitive radar receiver, in particular, the expensive pre-amplifier stage. A second failure mechanism of these quartz type pre-TR's is the longer term gas cleanup phenomenon. This results in a more gradual type of receiver protector failure. The gas cleanup is basically a result of the energetic ions, generated in the RF induced plasma, striking the quartz surface and diffusing into the material. Some of these ions will diffuse deep enough to be permanently trapped. This activated diffusion then results in gas cleanup. The cleanup rate is proportional to the square root of the diffusion coefficient of chlorine into quartz. A different vial material would result in a different diffusion rate for the same gas. The present invention solves both the thermal problem and the gas cleanup.